Chicha Libre

Cuatro Tigres [Barbès EP, 2013] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Cuatro Tigres [Barbès EP, 2013]
They're Brooklyn-based revivers-imitators of an early-'70s Peruvian cumbia-Andean-psychedoolic pop synthesis that loses an essential quantum of charm at a cultural distance--I much prefer the Roots of Chicha comp that got them going. But here they acknowledge their true roots with four covers on a vinyl-or-download CDs-are-for-squares EP, one of them a chicha "classic" called "Rica Chicha" that was the last of the four to grow on me. The first--by a mile, it's cute and militant simultaneously--was the Clash's "Guns of Brixton." The second was the Simpsons theme. The third, even more unlikely and almost as inspired conceptually, was Love's "Alone Again Or." Fun fun fun till Daddy takes the portable stereo away. A-